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32-459: Although well known in his own time, Kyd fell into obscurity until 1773 when Thomas Hawkins , an early editor of The Spanish Tragedy , discovered that Thomas Heywood , in his Apologie for Actors (1612), attributed the play to Kyd. A hundred years later, scholars in Germany and England began to shed light on his life and work, including the controversial finding that he may have been the author of

64-522: A Hamlet play pre-dating Shakespeare's, which is now known as the Ur-Hamlet . Thomas Kyd was the son of Francis and Anna Kyd. There are no records of the day he was born, but he was baptised in the church of St Mary Woolnoth in the Ward of Langborn, Lombard Street, London on 6 November 1558. The baptismal register at St Mary Woolnoth carries this entry: "Thomas, son of Francis Kydd, Citizen and Writer of

96-562: A family relationship has not been traced. The new edition of the Hanmer Shakespeare was launched in 1769 by a letter from Thomas Percy to Thomas Warton . Thomas Hawkins was brought by the Oxford University Press , and was paid £250 for his editorial work. It was supported by Sir John Hawkins, Percy and Warton in expanding Hanmer's original and much-criticised efforts. The glossary was doubled in size, and

128-460: A frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches," Sams argues that this "manifestly defines the first scene of Hamlet ('tis bitter cold I.i.8)," and evokes the touchy yet voluble Ghost of Hamlet Senior (a role that Shakespeare himself is said to have played). Similarly, Lodge's 1596 reference to the Ur-Hamlet ' s ghost "who cried so miserably at

160-457: A known and named colleague [i.e. Kyd], least of all without a word of comment, let alone censure, from any of his critics." Sams analyzes the most detailed account of the Ur-Hamlet , by Nashe in Menaphon in 1589, and sees Nashe's remarks as part of a pattern of jealous attacks upon Shakespeare (and Kyd) by their university-educated rivals. Citing Nashe's reference to "if you entreat him fair in

192-439: A new case can be shown to the contrary, that Shakespeare's Hamlet and no other is the play mentioned by Nashe in 1589 and Henslowe in 1594". Harold Jenkins , in his 1982 Arden edition, disagrees with this position. Eric Sams 's The Real Shakespeare argues that Shakespeare might steal phrases and rarely whole lines from other playwrights, but not entire theatrical treatments; and would not, at such length, have "plagiarized

224-505: A while Marlowe and Kyd shared lodgings, and perhaps even ideas. On 11 May 1593 the Privy Council ordered the arrest of the authors of "divers lewd and mutinous libels" which had been posted around London. One libel was found on the property of a Dutch Church and contained violent anti-foreigner sentiments and multiple allusions to the works of Marlowe. The next day, Kyd was among those arrested; he would later believe that he had been

256-460: Is no evidence that Kyd went on to university. He may have followed in his father's professional footsteps because there are two letters written by him where his handwriting style is similar to that of a scrivener. Evidence suggests that in the 1580s Kyd became an important playwright, but little is known about his activity. Francis Meres placed him among "our best for tragedy" and Heywood elsewhere called him "Famous Kyd". Ben Jonson mentions him in

288-604: Is supposed by some to have been the author of a Hamlet , the precursor of the Shakespearean play (see: Ur-Hamlet ). The success of Kyd's plays extended to Europe. Versions of The Spanish Tragedy were popular in Germany and the Netherlands for generations. The influence of these plays on European drama was largely the reason for the interest in Kyd among German scholars in the nineteenth century. From 1587 to 1593 Kyd

320-502: The Ur-Hamlet bears to Shakespeare's more commonly known play Hamlet is unclear: it may contain events supposed to have occurred before Shakespeare's tragedy or it may be an early version of that play; the First Quarto in particular is thought perhaps to have been influenced by the Ur-Hamlet . Thomas Nashe , in his introduction to Robert Greene's Menaphon (1589), writes in a riddling way that seems to leave clues regarding

352-590: The Courte Letter of London". Francis Kydd was a scrivener and in 1580 was warden of the Scriveners' Company . In October 1565 the young Kyd was enrolled in the newly founded Merchant Taylors' School , whose headmaster was Richard Mulcaster . Fellow students included Edmund Spenser and Thomas Lodge . Here, Kyd received a well-rounded education, with the curriculum including Italian, Latin, Greek, music, drama, physical education, and "good manners". There

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384-545: The English Drama appeared shortly after his death, in 1773. Son of John Hawkins of Oxford , he matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1746, aged 17. He graduated B.A. in 1750, was ordained priest by Thomas Secker in 1752, and graduated M.A . in 1753. He became chaplain of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1754. In his later years, he became involved in the scholarly projects of Sir John Hawkins . According to Davis, while Thomas Hawkins and Sir John were friends,

416-597: The Latin version of Saxo Grammaticus – the idea of Shakespeare as translator is often neglected. Margrethe Jolly's 2014 book The First Two Quartos of Hamlet , speaking of the first three printed texts of Hamlet , argued that "the sequence and evidence that the three texts provide suggests that Shakespeare had access to the French source and Q1 when he redrafted". In 2016, Professor Terri Bourus, one of three general editors of

448-658: The New Oxford Shakespeare, in her paper "Enter Shakespeare's Young Hamlet, 1589" suggests that Shakespeare was "interested in sixteenth-century French literature, from the very beginning of his career" and therefore "did not need Thomas Kyd to pre-digest Belleforest's histoire of Amleth and spoon-feed it to him". She considers that the hypothesized Ur-Hamlet is Shakespeare's Q1 text, and that this derived directly from Belleforest's French version. Elsewhere Bourus, after referring to Goethe's UrFaust or original version of Faust , argues that, "Like Faust … Hamlet

480-528: The Theatre, like an oyster-wife, Hamlet, revenge!" was "surely intended as an affront to the author and actor of that role". Summing up, Sams offers a list of 18 reasons for his belief that the Ur-Hamlet was Shakespeare's earliest version of Hamlet . In questions regarding Shakespeare as a possible revisor of an earlier version (or versions) of the Hamlet myth – such as the French version of Belleforest , or

512-650: The accusation, Marlowe was summoned by the Privy Council and, while waiting for a decision on his case, was killed in an incident in Deptford involving known government agents. Kyd was eventually released but was not accepted back into his lord's service. Believing he was under suspicion of atheism himself, he wrote to the Lord Keeper , Sir John Puckering, protesting his innocence, but his efforts to clear his name were apparently fruitless. The last we hear from

544-536: The author of the play, in Apologie for Actors , a 1612 work of Thomas Heywood . The Origin of the English Drama itself was a collection of the earlier English dramas, in three volumes, published with a dedication to Sir John Hawkins. Ur-Hamlet The Ur-Hamlet (the German prefix Ur- means "original") is a play by an unknown author, thought to be either Thomas Kyd or William Shakespeare . No copy of

576-412: The commentary clarified. But it still fell short of the contemporary work in annotating Shakespeare, with Samuel Johnson , Edmond Malone and George Steevens . As part of his research, Thomas Hawkins published in his Origin the attribution of The Spanish Tragedy , an Elizabethan play, to Thomas Kyd . His theory is now part of standard scholarship. It was a deduction from a mention of "M. Kid" as

608-610: The historian J. R. Mulryne states is "a tally unequaled by any of the plays of Shakespeare”. In 1602 a version of the play with "additions" was published. Philip Henslowe 's diary records payment to Ben Jonson for additions that year, but it is disputed whether the published additions reflect Jonson's work or if they were actually composed for a 1597 revival of The Spanish Tragedy also mentioned by Henslowe. Other works by Kyd are his translations of Torquato Tasso 's Padre di Famiglia , published as The Householder's Philosophy (1588), and of Robert Garnier 's Cornélie (1594), along with

640-685: The identity of playwrights who have left the trade of noverint (lawyer's clerk) to turn to writing, and who are being influenced by the Roman playwright Seneca , who "if you entreat him fair in a frosty morning, he will afford you whole Hamlets..." Nashe then writes that his followers are like the "kid" in Aesop. The reference to "Hamlets" vouches for the idea that a Hamlet-play existed as early as 1589. These references and similarities between Thomas Kyd 's The Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare's Hamlet are interpreted by many scholars as an indication that Kyd, who

672-436: The lamentable end of Don Horatio, and Bel-imperia: with the pittifull death of olde Hieronimo . However, the play was usually known simply as "Hieronimo" after the protagonist . It was arguably the most popular play of the "Age of Shakespeare" and set new standards in effective plot construction and character development. There were "twenty-nine performances between 1592 and 1597" and "eleven editions between 1592 and 1633", which

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704-484: The play Soliman and Perseda . Plays disputedly attributed, in whole or in part, to Kyd include King Leir , Fair Em , Arden of Faversham and parts of 1 Henry VI and Edward III . A play related to The Spanish Tragedy called The First Part of Hieronimo (surviving in a quarto of 1605) may be a bad quarto or memorial reconstruction of a play by Kyd, or it may be an inferior writer's burlesque of The Spanish Tragedy inspired by that play's popularity. Kyd

736-609: The play, dated by scholars to the second half of 1587, survives today. The play was staged in London, more specifically at The Theatre in Shoreditch as recalled by Elizabethan author Thomas Lodge . It includes a character named Hamlet; the only other known character from the play is a ghost who, according to Thomas Lodge in his 1596 publication Wits Misery and the Worlds Madnesse , cries "Hamlet, revenge!" What relation

768-528: The playwright is the publication of Cornelia early in 1594. In the dedication to the Countess of Sussex he alludes to the "bitter times and privy broken passions" he had endured. Kyd died later that year at the age of 35, and was buried on 15 August in St Mary Colechurch in London. In December of that same year, Kyd's mother legally renounced the administration of his estate, probably because it

800-480: The same breath as Christopher Marlowe (with whom, in London, Kyd at one time shared a room) and John Lyly in the Shakespeare First Folio. The Spanish Tragedy was probably written in the mid to late 1580s, with its first recorded performance on 23 February 1592 by Lord Strange's Men . The earliest surviving edition was printed in 1592, the full title being The Spanish Tragedie, Containing

832-426: The victim of an informer. His lodgings were searched and instead of evidence of the "libels" there was found an Arianist tract, described by an investigator as "vile heretical conceits denying the eternal deity of Jesus Christ found amongst the papers of Thos. Kydd [ sic ], prisoner ... which he affirmeth he had from C. Marley [ sic ]". Historians such as Frederick Boas believe that Kyd

864-454: Was a noverint, a Seneca-influenced playwright, and whose name is a homophone of Aesop's "kid", might be the author of the Hamlet that Nashe mentions. Some suggest that the Ur-Hamlet is an early version of Shakespeare's own play, pointing to the survival of Shakespeare's version in three quite different early texts, Q1 (1603), Q2 (1604) and F (1623), and offer the possibility that the play

896-599: Was debt-ridden. St Mary Colechurch was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and not rebuilt. The dates of composition are approximate. Thomas Hawkins (literary editor) Thomas Hawkins (1729 - 23 October 1772) was an English Anglican priest, academic and literary editor. He edited the second edition of the Hanmer Shakespeare— Sir Thomas Hanmer 's Shakespeare edition —which appeared in 1771. His historical work The Origin of

928-514: Was in the service of an unidentified noble, since, after his imprisonment in 1593 (see below), he wrote of having lost "the favours of my Lord, whom I haue servd almost theis vi yeres nowe". Proposed nobles include the Earl of Sussex , the Earl of Pembroke , Lord Strange . and Edward De Vere , 17th Earl of Oxford. He may have worked as a secretary, if he did not also write plays. Around 1591 Christopher Marlowe also joined this patron's service, and for

960-558: Was repeatedly revised by its author. As Faust matured with Goethe, Hamlet matured with Shakespeare. It matters so much to us, in part, because it mattered so much to him." In 2019, Jennifer E. Nicholson, in her University of Sydney PhD thesis, reinforced this view, offering independent evidence from each of the three printed Hamlet s, that Shakespeare was responding creatively to subtle hints in Belleforest's French text, and deriving some of his more famous lines, including perhaps

992-558: Was revised by the author over a period of many years. While the exact relationship of the short and apparently primitive text of Q1 to the later published texts is not resolved, Hardin Craig has suggested that it may represent an earlier draft of the play and hence would confirm that the Ur-Hamlet is in fact merely an earlier draft of Shakespeare's play. This view is held in some form or another by Harold Bloom , Peter Alexander , and Andrew Cairncross , who stated, "It may be assumed, until

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1024-456: Was tortured brutally to obtain this information. Kyd told authorities the writings found in his possession belonged to Christopher Marlowe, a fellow dramatist and former roommate. Kyd "accused his former roommate of being a blasphemous traitor, an atheist who believed that Jesus Christ was a homosexual ," an uninformed confusion over the Arian and early Gnostic concept of homoousios . Following

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